India finds deadly bird flu virus

A huge cull is to begin
India has detected its first cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in western Maharashtra state.
Dr HK Pradhan of High Security Animal Disease Laboratory said tests had confirmed the virus in dead chickens.

The health ministry said that though no human cases had been detected so far, some people were being tested for the disease.

The H5N1 strain has killed at least 90 people since early 2003, mostly in south-east Asia.

The virus can infect humans in close contact with birds. There is still no evidence that it can be passed from human to human.

Outbreak

Maharashtra minister Anees Ahmed said about 50,000 birds had died at a chicken farm at Nandurbar district near Maharashtra's border with Gujarat state in the past few days.

He said that tests of the samples of the dead birds had confirmed bird flu.



Mr Ahmed said more than half a million chickens in the affected area would be culled in the next 24 hours to prevent the disease from spreading to human beings.

Another million chicken in farms located 10km around the affected area would be vaccinated.

Mr Ahmed said the state government was sending a team of 200 veterinary doctors to the area, more than 400km (250 miles) northeast of Mumbai.

"We have not decided on whether to evacuate people from the area," he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

A 3-km (2-mile) safety cordon has been established around the site where the dead birds were found.

'Buffer zones'


The European Union recently approved a series of measures to try to halt the spread of the virus, including the automatic creation of protection and surveillance zones around outbreaks in wild birds.

If the virus transfers from wild birds to poultry, "buffer zones" that could cover an entire region should be established and the transport of poultry restricted within them.



The BBC's Zubair Ahmed in the western Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay), capital of Maharashtra, says for the past few weeks there were suspicions in Nandurbar of the outbreak of the disease after deaths of thousands of chickens.

A poultry owner in the area said 400,000 chickens in poultry farms had been affected by the virus.

Indian health officials have advised people against eating chicken until further notice.

The World Health Organization says at least 91 people in seven countries have died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu since 2003.

Almost all the deaths have been linked to contact with infected poultry.

Experts fear the virus could combine or mutate into a form that passes easily between humans, possibly sparking a pandemic, but there is no evidence that this has happened yet.

Bird Flu

Bird flu

Nepal at risk of bird flu: WHO



NITYA NANDA TIMSINA


KATHMANDU, Feb 20 - Dr. Margarita Ronderos, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO) Sunday warned the possibility of the outbreak of the deadly bird flu in Nepal.
Reacting to the outbreak of bird flu in neighbouring India, she said, "Nepal is at risk of avian influenza though no single case has been detected so far."

"A surveillance of possible human cases is underway in various risk-areas that include Koshi Tappu and Chitwan where large flocks of birds migrate from India and other countries," she said.

Though a total of 20 investigations made in Nepal so far have shown negative results, Dr. Ronderos did not rule out the possibility of the outbreak of bird flu, which is rapidly spreading around the world.

The WHO has helped the government prepare a national plan for the prevention of avian influenza. The plan has been endorsed by the Cabinet recently and the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health and Population have been given the task to identify avian influenza and control and contain the spread of the deadly disease.

Though Nepal has been categorized as a "low-risk" country in the just concluded conference of epidemiologists in Beijing, the outbreak of bird flu in neighbouring India has made Nepal a high-risk country.

A source at the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP) said the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division (EDCD) of the government and the WHO have stepped up with a bird flu prevention and control program.

Alert along border with India

Meanwhile, as a preventive measure to stop the spread of H5N1 bird flu virus to Nepal via the open southern border, the government on Sunday asked all 24 quarantine officers who were attending a workshop in the capital to join their office immediately.

Officials at the Animal Health Department of the government held an emergency meeting in Kathmandu on Saturday and decided to activate all quarantine posts along the Nepal-India border.

They took the decision after analyzing reports of the confirmation of bird flu cases in the Indian states of Maharastra and Gujarat. "We are under high risk after the virus has appeared in India," said Dr Dhana Raj Ratala, project director at Animal Health Department.

The meeting decided to keep "special watch" on import of chicken and semi-pet birds from India, which shares a more than 1700 kilometer open border with Nepal.

"Earlier, we were concentrated on Tibet after the Bird Flu was reported in China and because of the migrant birds coming to Nepal via Tibet, but our focus has now shifted to India," Ratala said.

The department also briefed officials about personal safety measures and ways to prevent spread of the virus.

The government also decided to appeal to the people not to import chicken from India as a formal ban is in process due to some legal technicalities.

"Quarantine offices along the border have been asked to strictly monitor import as well as internal transportation of chicken," said Ratala.

Peking ducks and chicken from Tibet are already banned due to the possibility of spread of the virus through migrant birds as bird flu had been reported in China.